A humorless laugh scrapes out of me. “Nope.”
“Try harder.”
I look past him, toward the porch where I can hear Bit already talking to Esme in that too-bright, too-kind voice of hers, probably trying to make the impossible feel survivable.
“She said she’s got a stalker,” Sawyer says quietly. “That true?”
“She says a lot of things.”
He studies me for a beat too long.
“You don’t believe her.”
I don’t answer.
He reads that just fine.
“Doesn’t matter right now,” he says. “If someone’s tracking her, your problem isn’t your divorce papers. It’s keeping that shit off the ranch.”
The ranch.
Our business.
His woman.
Our men.
Our homes.
Everything I built to be different from Ace Gunner and the poison in his blood.
Everything I did to run away from a past that hurt too fucking much to face.
I drag a hand through my hair and look toward the main house.
Esme’s still out there.
One hand on her bag strap.
One shoulder lifted like she’s bracing for the next hit.
Bit’s smiling at her, probably asking if she wants tea or coffee or a damn muffin.
Angie’s standing back with her arms crossed, weighing Esme with the kind of practical female judgment I know better than to underestimate.
Esme looks tired.
Not just road-weary or end-of-day worn down.
Bone-deep tired.
The kind that settles into a person after too many nights spent alone, too many problems handled without backup, too many doors closed in your face.
That thought pisses me off most of all.
I don’t want to notice it.
Don’t want to clock the shadows under her eyes, the way her shoulders slope just a little like she’s carrying more than she should, or how her face looks thinner than I remember—sharper in places that used to be soft.
